Monday, January 20, 2014

Ecumenism under a lucky star · Expectations for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity ·

This year the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
(18-25 January) is under an especially lucky ecumenical star.

The theme of the
Week is taken from the first chapter of the First Letter to the Corinthians, in
which Paul launches a vehement appeal for unity and poses a question that
challenges our consciences: “Has Christ been divided?” (1 Cor 1:13).

Faced with
this question, what immediately comes to mind is the tragic situation of
divided Christianity, for the rupture
that still exists in the Church today should be taken as the division of
what by its nature is indivisible, that is, the unity of the Body of Christ.

It
is precisely this painful problem that prompted the drafting of the Second
Vatican Council's decree on ecumenism, Unitatis redintegratio, whose 50th
anniversary we celebrate this year.

The focal point of 2014 is the commemoration of the
historic meeting between the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople,
Athenagoras, and the Bishop of Rome, Pope Paul VI, in Jerusalem 50 years ago –
on 5 and 6 January 1964.

At that time, their mutual intention to re-establish
charity between the two Churches was announced and was sealed by the brotherly
kiss of the two Church leaders in the name of the brothers Andrew and Peter;
this will remain for us the enduring icon of ecumenical openness to
reconciliation.

by Kurt KochCardinal-President of The Pontifical Council for
Promoting Christian Unity